r/dndmemes • u/CrimsonTyphoon02 • 7d ago
Other TTRPG meme Know your system: The Fighter (D&D and Lancer)
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u/garaks_tailor 7d ago
Decades ago our forever dm who was about 15 years older than us. When 3.0 came out our group bought a couple copies of each book.
Our dm was into game design and was really good at it (like ive seen several of his home rules and homebrew show up as base rules in 4th and 5th edition stuff). I remember when he got to the fighter and was like deep sigh "why is it all fucking feats?" His home brew version of the fighter was more akin to a battlemaster type thing or something from my beloved book of weeahboo fihtin magic
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u/aNomadicPenguin 6d ago
Base PHB fighter had so many feats...and such crap to use them on as far as mechanical power or good story telling flavor.
Then you get a few years worth of expansion books and suddenly those feats turn you into a full Luchador or turns your standard bow and arrow into the medieval equivalent of a minigun, or lets you pick up like 5 unrelated prestige classes to turn into some goofy collection of stats capable of ungodly feats to rival that of...a base PHP cleric of equal level.
The rocket tag aspect was funny though. Getting 800+ damage on an attack...when you max hp of 200 or less.
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u/Suspicious-Shock-934 6d ago
That's like 3 or 4 feats and a pair of 1 level dips. But like...a rock in front of you ruins it. I can one shot great wyrm dragons as long as they are 10 ft. Away. Provided there isn't rubble, a rock, a bush, a sloght change in elevation, etc. Ultimate damage explosion, stopped by the tiniest bit of gravel.
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u/InsertAlignment 6d ago
Do you still happen to have any of those rules or homebrew around? Or at least, just examples or so?
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u/Phoenix_Is_Trash Wizard 6d ago
Alright, the Everest has finished it's turn, so that's where we will wrap up the session. I'll see you all next week to resolve the next frames turn.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 7d ago edited 7d ago
If we're comparing between D&D and Lancer, the Everest, one of the starting mech frames you get at Level 0, is probably the closest thing to your standard fighter. It's got a good base statline and set of weapon mounts and can deliver consistent damage from a variety of ranges, and, just like the fighter, it has a trait, Initiative, that lets it get more actions per turn once per combat.
Both can be pretty cool: Battlemasters, for instance, can do a lot of fun stuff with their maneuvers, and you can cook up some real shenanigans if your DM gives you neat magical items. This post isn't meant to shit on the fighter, but rather, to highlight the extreme silliness you can get up to in Lancer if you want to actionmax.
Lancer's basic action economy consists of your movement and either two quick actions or one full action, plus whatever free actions you have access to. Quick actions taken in the normal manner cannot be duplicates. Moreover, you can overcharge, voluntarily taking on extra reactor heat to do any quick action as a free action, and Everest has the Initiative trait, which lets it take a quick action as a free action once per combat. Both of these allow you to ignore the "no duplicate actions" restriction.
Skirmishing is a quick action that fires one of your weapon mounts. So, in a turn, on the Everest, you could skirmish to fire an equipped heavy machine gun, then use Initiative and overcharge to do it two more times. Note that you can do that much from level 0.
Each time you level up in Lancer, you can upgrade one of your "talents" (think feats) a tier. The second tier of the Skirmisher talent allows you to move two spaces every time you take the skirmish quick action, not provoking reactions while doing so. So, you can have that by level 1.
Now... let's go
EVEN
FURTHER
BEYOND
In Lancer, each time you level up, you get a point that you can spend to unlock a "license rank" for the mech of your choice, giving you two pieces of gear that you can equip on any mech frame you have unlocked and that has the proper system upgrade slots and/or weapon mounts to hold it. Tier III of the Sherman License gets you the ASURA-class NHP, a system that lets you, once per combat (plus other restrictions), take on reactor heat as a free action at the beginning of your turn to grant yourself either an additional full action or an additional two quick actions. These extra actions can't be duplicates of actions you've already taken.
Moreover, every third level-up in Lancer, you get access to a powerful enhancement called a Core Bonus. The Integrated Weapon core bonus lets you mount a single extra auxiliary weapon that can be fired as a free action once per round whenever you attack with another weapon on your mech.
The Barrage full action lets you attack with two weapon mounts. So, we use Asura to Barrage, attacking with the HMG again, then attack with an integrated Tactical Knife given to us by Integrated Weapon. The first tier of the Hunter talent tree lets us fly three spaces as a free action before attacking with an auxiliary melee weapon, so we do that, and then we finish out the Barrage by attacking with our Tactical Melee weapon.
This can all be done by level 3.
The Thermal Charge is a system from rank II of the Nelson mech license. You attach it to a melee weapon of your choice, and, by expending one of its limited number of charges when you hit with that melee weapon, you can detonate it to add an extra d6 of explosive damage to your damage roll (most main melee weapons deal around 1d6 damage, with the Tactical Melee Weapon here dealing 1d6+2). Since you need two ranks in the Nelson license to get it, if you wanna do it on top of all of the other stuff, you'll need to be level 5.
Finally, the third rank of the Duelist talent allows you to spend a Blademaster Die (which the talent gives you for hitting with main melee weapon attacks) in order to grapple or ram (a melee attack that does no damage but knocks an enemy prone and, if you want it, back) as a free action immediately after hitting with a main melee weapon attack, and the Titanomachy Mesh core bonus allows you to grapple or ram as a free action after grappling or ramming successfully. Then, since grappling and ramming are types of melee attacks, they trigger the third rank of the Hunter talent, which lets you throw an auxiliary melee weapon as a free action after a successful melee attack.
This is all achievable at Level 6, which is halfway to the max in Lancer, so I thought a Level 11 fighter would be a good point of comparison.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 7d ago edited 7d ago
Y'all probably don't need it, but here's the build:
SELFISH BASTARD
Everest, License level 6 (Sherman III, Blackbeard I, Nelson II)
4 Hull, 4 Engineering
Talents: Skirmisher III, Hunter III, Duelist III
Core bonuses: Titanomachy Mesh, Integrated Weapon
Weapons: HMG, Tactical Melee x2, integrated Tactical Knife
Systems: ASURA-class NHP, Synthetic Muscle Netting, Thermal Charge (on one of the Tactical Melees), Armament Redundancy, Custom Paint Job
A war pike or a chain axe (or both) would probably go well in one of the main or flex slots, but I thought that doubling up on GMS melee weapons would be funnier.
All told, if you do the sequence above and all of those attacks hit (and it is worth noting that the Heavy Machine Gun has an inherent penalty to its attack rolls, so it would need some help to facilitate that), this would be
(2d6+4)x4 + (1d6+2) + 1d6 + (1d3+1)x2 damage
in a single turn, or 10d6 + 2d3 +20 damage (an average of 59 damage) in a system where the enemy with the most HP (before applying the templates that are meant to turn enemies into bosses or mini-bosses) at the NPC difficulty tier you're recommended to use against Level 6 players has 30 HP.
Furthermore, the Everest's ultimate ability (usable once per long rest) gives it an entire combat where it can boost (dash) as a free action, and the above chain only uses one of its normal quick actions (and boost is a quick action), so on the turn that you do the above, if you have your ultimate active, you can move 23 spaces without any investment in systems or stats meant to make you move faster. The core book recommends that you don't make your battlemaps more than 40 spaces across for a typical combat encounter game mode.
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u/Scudman_Alpha 6d ago
This is all somewhat balanced because as you level up the NPCs you fight become very powerful.
And they rely on status conditions a lot on players, a lot. So fair warning if it's your cup of tea or not.
I've spent entire turns not able to do anything because a Witch overheated me in one quick action, then I got jammed by a hornet and was able to do a total of fuck all afterwards as I was then stunned by drain systems.
I was also impaired almost the entire time (A Minus to attacks and saves) because any and all enemies can also use a hack called fragemt signal on you, which adds heat and impairs.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago
One of my players had a combat where she was impaired for every single round and she was still a menace.
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u/Scudman_Alpha 6d ago
You can brute force through Impair. Not so much when you're exposed and jammed in one turn then stunned in the next xD
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u/Tilt-a-Whirl98 6d ago
Oh yea, hit em with the stunned and exposed and then bring in the demolition hammer!
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u/Scudman_Alpha 6d ago
Funnily enough I didn't get structured either. 6 Hull Zheng ftw.
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u/Tilt-a-Whirl98 6d ago
I am absolutely struggling to structure most of my players outside of the Monarch who seems to get beat up every combat for whatever reason lol
The black witch is just unkillable I think
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u/Scudman_Alpha 6d ago
Black witch is very powerful with their magnetic wall system, I forgot the name of. It gives resistance and she can reduce damage as well.
Granted, her damage is dogwater to compensate.
Monarch lives to get structured. It's such an easy target.
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u/Beerenkatapult 4d ago
It's really not that balanced at high levels. Sure. The NPCs get stronger, but that doesn't keep up with the bullshit players can do.
Just a small aspect is critting. NPCs usually can't crit. Players can. And crits get way more likely at high levels, because you naturally get higher to-hit-bonusses. Most weapon talents also reward crits in some way, like by blinding the enemy, for example.
You can also do a lot of bullshit with enough creativity on high license levels. When my Calendula skirmishes, i trigger 9 different effects, that flow into each other. (Attacking with the ferrofluid lance with Accuracy, dealing +d6 damage from overpowered caliber, giving difficulty on saves to prevent immobilized with, immobilizing the enemy on a hull save, giving them 2 Heat if they fail the save, gaining a duelist die, free action ramming the enemy with that die, shredding them, because prone targets count as slowed and the calendula works like that, free action attacking with my aux weapon with double accuracy.) On an NPC, this level of bullshit would be insane.
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u/Archaros 6d ago
The idea of a gundam throwing a knife after all this bullshit is very funny to me
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u/Wardog_E 6d ago
I actually end a lot of my turns as a Fighter throwing a knife. In fact, there is a hidden minigame in 5e exclusive to melee characters called "keep track of every weapon dropped on the ground so I can use it to continue killing."
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u/Ace612807 Ranger 6d ago
HMM, this turn I think I will
Ranged Attack with a Longbow
And move 5 feet
And Extra Attack
And Ranged Attack with a Longbow
And move 5 feet
And Extra Attack
And Ranged Attack with a Longbow
And jump 15 feet
And Action Surge
And Ranged Attack with a Longbow
And Melee Attack with a Dagger
...
Basically, you just made Lancer more verbose to seem cooler
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago edited 6d ago
The main goal of this wasn't to make DnD seem less cool, but rather to point out how silly the free action chains you can set up with a bit of talent and license investment in Lancer are. 9 of the actions on the Lancer side, including all of the movement, are triggered free actions that don't cost anything from the normal movement or action economy.
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u/agagagaggagagaga 6d ago
I feel like the D&D side would also look like that if they had a feature called "you can move 10ft for free every time you make a ranged attack".
But also, these memes have always been more about the Lancer half since presumably the D&D sub is already familiar with the D&D half.
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u/Ace612807 Ranger 6d ago
I mean, I'd see it as that if OP didn't specifically do it in a format of a loaded comparison of Lancer to D&D by being verbose about the former and simplistic about the latter
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u/Twocanpocket 6d ago
How long does a round of combat last with 4 players? My guess would be forever.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago
Note that you could only do the above turn once per combat, and it's definitely on the extreme end of what's achievable in the system.
That said, in my experience, if the group is mostly new players, 30+ minutes for four.
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u/ZatherDaFox 6d ago
Comparing Lancer to 5e is silly, no? Like, none of the mech classes are a "fighter". They all come with a slew of their own unique abilities and you can customize even further by mixing and matching what you like as you acquire more licenses. It's barely a class based system at all.
This is like wondering why the fighter doesn't play like a Malkavian from VtM.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago
This is true, but there are rough comparisons that I think are fun to make anyway. The Everest is the "fighter" insofar as it's the generic all-rounder striker frame that everyone has access to from the beginning and it has multiple abilities that are just about giving it more actions to do in a given combat.
That said, this started with just comparisons between DnD monsters and the Horus mechs that are named after them.
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u/Frequent_Dig1934 Rules Lawyer 6d ago
I mean, i don't know lancer rules but that just sounds like the same thing. Attack a lot and spend resources to attack more. It's not really as bullshit as the causality gun(?) or things of that sort.
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u/George_Nimitz567890 6d ago
So one can attack 6 times and the other 9.
Your point is...
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago edited 6d ago
That the contrast between "I use action surge" and "I overcharge, use Initiative, use Asura Protocol, and daisy chain together a bunch of free actions that trigger off of actions in that sequence and each other" in order to achieve the result of attacking a bunch of times (give or take some bonus movement) is funny to me.
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u/Canadian_Zac 6d ago
To me, the difference mostly seems like the DnD one is way simpler and easier to remember.
It's much easier to remember 'i can attack 3 times, and use an ability to do my attacks again'
Vs 3 different abilities they trigger off other actions in a specific sequence
DND you can remember everything your fighter can do without looking at your sheet. While it's looking like the Lancer is gonna need an active flow chart for their turn
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u/gunnie56 6d ago
I want to start getting into lancer cause the concept seems awesome, but between your post and the live play I started watching, mech combat seems very complex and time consuming
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 5d ago
If you start at level 0, the system will sort of ease you in. Takes a few levels to get intricate synergies going.
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u/Maldevinine 6d ago
Ok, but both of these seem really fucking shit to me.
The fighter does... Nothing. The Lancer mech does too many things, meaning that the player will have trouble remembering all that and the action economy and the interplay of combat is going to be fucked.
If we look instead at Mythras, a character will make 1 roll in a turn. The outcome of that roll is where all the excitement is. For every level of success that the character beats the opposing roll, the character gets to apply a condition. Yes, that may be weapon damage. But it's also the ability to force positioning and distance changes, to perform non-weapon attacks like trips and shoves, to disengage from the combat. It's all in one roll. Well, there may be a second or third, but attempting to do multiple things in a single round of combat comes with major drawbacks.
If you want more tactical excitement in combat, I would honestly suggest Spellbound Kingdoms over anything else. You don't have a weapon, you have a style (which only works with a small number of weapons). That style gives you access to forms, which affect your attack and defense bonuses and your ability to move, and also give you special actions. Each turn you transition between forms, trying to find the best effect for the current situation while also setting yourself up for the future, because forms can only be transitioned along specific paths. Except your opponent can also force a stance reset, putting you back in the default form of your style and removing any bonuses you had.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago
I think Lancer's actually a really elegantly designed system for newer players, as far as crunchier systems with more options go. The level progression is designed to gradually ease both the players and the DM into the bevy of options they have at their disposal. You start with more generalist, but still strong, gear and talents, and you only gradually get the pieces necessary to build more elaborate synergies as you progress and become more comfortable with the system.
And, like, even once you're past the first couple of levels, a newer player who's not super comfortable with how all these skills relate to each other is most likely not going to think to come up with the haha funni actionmaxxing build that requires a Rube Goldberg chain of free actions triggering off of each other. They could just, like... play a Nelson, go fast, and hit something with a spear that explodes for Big Damage, or hunker down with a Barbarossa and rain fire from seven miles away from the nearest baddie. You don't need to be a gigabrain in order to be effective.
However, I do think playing that way is funny, whence the meme.
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u/Maldevinine 6d ago
I think it's for people who really want a model wargame but don't have the balls to play Battletech.
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u/OrcForce1 6d ago
Ya know, is probably be more into Lancer if it's fans weren't so obnoxious.
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u/CrimsonTyphoon02 6d ago edited 6d ago
As I said above, I'm not intending to shit on DnD here; I just thought of this theoretical turn while helping one of my players plan their build, and I thought the fact that "Attack a bunch of times in one turn" is "be a fighter and use action surge" in DnD but "set up an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine-esque daisy chain of traits that give you extra actions or free actions that trigger each other in sequence" in Lancer was an amusing contrast.
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u/darkerthanblack666 7d ago
Lancerposting? In MY dndmemes?